Izmit massacres

The Izmit massacres refer to atrocities committed in the region of Izmit, Turkey, during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). An Allied commission that investigated the incidents, submitted a report, on June 1, 1921, about the events. In general it accepted the Greek claims that Turkish troops massacred more than 12,000 local civilians, while 2,500 were missing^[1][2] and stated that the atrocities committed by the Turks in the Izmit peninsula "have been more considerable and ferocious than those on the part of the Greeks".^[1][4]

Incidents

Ethnic cleansing policies undertaken by the Ottoman government were launched in various regions of the Ottoman Empire, including Izmit region, as soon as 1915. This included the massive deportation of local Greek and Armenian populations.^[1] Later, in 1918, after the Armistice of Mudros a number of attacks of nationalist bands against the local Christian population was reported. This violence increased against the local Greek population, from March 1920 and especially during June–July 1920, when the advance of the Greek army in the region was imminent.^[2] These groups were operating as far as Üsküdar, while some of them were organized by the Turkish National Movement.^[2]

As a result of this activity, several villages of the region were burnt and their population decimated, especially in the regions south, north and northeast of Adapazarı, as well as south and southeast of Iznik.^[2]

The presence of the Greek army in the region from July 1920, limited the activity of the Turkish bands, although in Karamürsel, south of the Gulf of İzmit, some Turkish nationalists groups were still attacking surrounding villages inhabited by Greek populations.^[2]

Later, the Greek army in the region, was accused for supporting assaults against some villages east of Beykoz. Accusations included the killing of civilians and the burning of small settlements.^[5] Accusations also included violence perpetrated by local Greek civilians that previously suffered from Turkish atrocities ^[5]

From the spring of 1921, the activity of the Turkish bands increased in the region extending geographically to the south of Izmit, which resulted in the destruction of the Christian villages there.^[2]

Evacuation of Izmit

In the early summer of 1921, due to the developments of the ongoing Greco-Turkish War, the retreat of the Greek army was imminent. The Christian population had become panic-stricken fearing a wholesale massacre by the Kemalists,^[6] so it was decided that the civilians were to be evacuated. As a result, a total of 22,000 inhabitants who had sought refuge in the city during the Greek occupation in addition to the ca. 10,000 Greek and Armenian inhabitants of the city who wished to be evacuated in order to avoid persecutions by the Turkish national movement, left the area.^[7] According to the British High Commission, 33,000 people were evacuated. Of these, approximately 21,000 were Greeks, 9,000 were Armenians, and 3,000 were Turks and Circassians. They were distributed as follows:- ^[6]

• 7,600 to Volos
• 4,000 to Rodosto
• 3,000 to Pyrgo (Greece)
• 4,500 to Lemnos
• 3,800 to Samos
• 8,000 to Mytilene

Aftermath

An Allied commission that investigated the incidents in the region accepted the Greek claims that Turkish troops massacred more than 12,000 local civilians, while 2,500 were missing was accepted by the commission as fundamentally true, "not withstanding a certain amount of exaggeration in the figures".^[1][2]

According to British journalist and latter historian, Arnold Toynbee, as a result of the activities of the Greek army and irregulars, up to 300 persons were killed.^[3] Toynbee in general omits to notice the conclusion of the Allied commission. Moreover, Winston Churchill, stated that the Greek atrocities were on a minor scale compared to the appalling deportations of Greeks from the Trebizond and Samsun provinces, undertaken by the Turkish nationalists in the same year.^[1]

Partial list of affected settlements

The Allied commission concluded that 35 villages in the region were affected due to the activity of Turkish nationalist bands.^[1][2] A partial list of the villages according to Greek reports:^[8]

• Fulacık: Looted, burned and population partially massacred. According to Kostas Faltaits who recorded the testimony of one of the survivors, the looting and massacre began on the 23rd of June 1920. Turkish regulars and irregulars were under the command of Kemal, the political administrator of Karamursel. 300 men and boys 14 and older were locked inside the church of St. George before it was doused with petrol and set alight.^[9]
• Büyük Saraçlı
• Papuççular (burned)
• Kara Tepe: Looted, partially burned, town's church bombed, population massacred. According to journalist Kostas Faltaits who interviewed a survivor of the massacre at Kara Tepe, the town was first looted on the 15th of May 1920. But on the 25th of March 1921, Kemalists returned and continued the looting and also massacred the population.^[10]
• Iznik (Gr: Nicaea): On the 27th of August 1920, a large band of Nationalists led by a certain Djemal (otherwise spelt Cemal), surrounded the Greek quarter of Iznik, seized the entire population numbering about 600, and massacred them. No survivors had been found.^[11]
• Fındıklı: 4 villages, population partially massacred, looting, rape. According to journalist Kostas Faltaits who interviewed a survivor of the massacre, the events started on the 20th of June 1920. All 500 homes were burnt and out of 2,500 Christians less than half survived. Girls were raped in front of their mothers. Kemalist soldiers were under the command of Hadji Bey.^[12]
• Lefke^[13]
• Ortaköy: Completely burnt, looting, rape, massacre. According to an eye witness testimony, the majority of the 10,000 Greeks of Ortaköy were massacred. The events began in March 1920 when regular and irregular Kemalist forces arrived under the command of the kaymakam of Geyve, Hamid Bey. Civilians were beheaded and massacred with knives and hatchets.^[14]
• Eşme
• Konzes: Looted and its inhabitants massacred. According to journalist Kostas Faltaits who interviewed a survivor, the looting and massacre started on the 18th of February 1921. Djemal (otherwise spelt Cemal) of Nicaea (Iznik) directed the looting and massacre, along with Sekip (the Tax Collector of Karamursel) and other civil servants, officers, lieutenants and corporals. A contingent of the Hellenic Army arrived at Konzes on the 20th of February 1921 and saw the land covered with corpses, men's and women's clothes, hands, feet, noses, ears and fingers.^[15]
• Ak Hisar
• Düzce
• Bolu
• Karasu, 14 villages (among them Kestane Pınarı, Parali, İncirli, Çoban Yatak, Kirazlı, Kas Başı)

See also

• Greek Genocide
• Yalova Peninsula Massacres (1920–21)
• List of massacres during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22)
• Armenian Genocide
• Amasya trials

References

Sources

• Reports on Atrocities in the Districts of Yalova and Guemlek and in the Ismid Peninsula. 1921. pp. 9–11. Retrieved 15 June 2014. 
• Evdoridou, Agapi. "The Greek Population of Ismit (Nicomedia) and its Periphery" (in Greek). University of Thessaloniki. Retrieved 16 July 2014. 
• Shenk, Robert (2012). America's Black Sea fleet the U.S. Navy amidst war and revolution, 1919-1923. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781612513027. 
• Solomonidis, Victoria (1984). "Greece in Asia Minor: The Greek Administration in the Vilayet of Aydin" (PDF). University of London, King's College. Retrieved 5 June 2014. 
• Faltaits, Kostas (2016). The Genocide of the Greeks in Turkey: Survivor Testimonies from the Nicomedia (Izmit) Massacres of 1920-1921. U.S.A: Cosmos Publishing. ISBN 9781932455281. 
• Yeghiayan, Vartkes(ed) (2007). British Reports on Ethnic Cleansing in Anatolia, 1919-1922: The Armenian-Greek Section. USA: Center for Armenian Remembrance. ISBN 9780977715329.